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VICTORIA - The B.C. New Democrats and B.C. Liberals had been predicting all year that the gap in the opinion polls between their two parties would tighten up as election day approached.

They were a little surprised that it hadn’t happened yet. Then Friday it did.

Ipsos Reid, in a poll conducted for Global TV, reported that the New Democrats were leading the Liberals by 10 points, about half as much as at the outset of the election campaign.

Angus Reid, polling for CTV and the Globe and Mail newspaper, had the NDP lead at seven points, half as much as in one of the firm’s polls released a week ago.

As to the reason for the shift, the general rule is that however things stand on the day the election writ is issued, campaigns do matter. In this instance, speculation turned to the major event of the week, the televised leaders’ debate on Monday night.

B.C. Liberal leader Christy Clark, the superior communicator, had presumably done herself some good with viewers, notwithstanding the concerns expressed here and elsewhere about the dubious content of some of her answers.

NDP leader Adrian Dix, who struck me as having a better command of his material during the debate, had perhaps raised doubts with some viewers with his admittedly awkward and evasive manner.

Maybe her plain admission of wrongdoing at the outset of the debate had undone the damage to herself over that stop-and-go episode at the red light with her son and a reporter in the car.

Or maybe it was cancelled out by Dix’s attempt to downplay the notorious memo to file by advising viewers that he’d been only 35 years old at the time he backdated it — as if he were trying to raise the age of majority for wrongdoing.

But I’m more inclined to credit the tightening in the polls to the polarization that usually happens in B.C. elections, as folks face up to the choice between (as one of our more cynical political leaders put it decades ago) “us — or worse than us.”

The NDP has done a masterful job of setting the theme of this election as “time for a change.” But change is scary for many people and they would appear to be drifting back to the Liberals, opting for the status quo.

Still, the numbers in the two polls do not strike me as raising too much cause for alarm among New Democrats. I was surprised that the Angus survey had the party scoring as low as 41 per cent among decided voters. Ipsos’ 45 per cent struck me as more plausible.

But even at 41 per cent, the New Democrats could expect a big win so long as they remain in first place among the parties. Mike Harcourt and his New Democrats captured a bit less than 41 per cent in the 1991 provincial election, but with the remainder of the vote split between two other parties, it was enough for him to form government with 51 of 75 seats in the legislature.

Being first in the popular vote usually ensures a win in B.C. In the one modern-day election where it didn’t, in 1996, the New Democrats under then-premier Glen Clark were able to win a majority of the seats in the legislature because their 39-point share was more evenly distributed around the province than the 42 per cent garnered by the Liberals.

As for the other two parties, both pollsters continued to find that a significant share of British Columbians are leaning to either the Conservatives or the Greens. A bit more than a fifth of the electorate, suggests Angus. A bit less than a fifth, according to Ipsos.

If that share holds and the gap between the two main parties continues to narrow, then the outcome may be influenced by the fact that the Conservatives and the Greens are well short of a full slate of candidates.

Both screened candidates more closely than in the past, trying to minimize “bozo eruptions” — those embarrassing revelations that force candidates to resign and party leaders to confess to inadequate screening processes.

The Greens managed the vetting without public embarrassment. But it meant that they managed to field candidates in only 61 of 85 ridings. Green leader Jane Sterk has impressed many as much improved over her presentation in the 2009 election. But in 24 ridings, voters won’t be able to find an official Green candidate on the ballot.

The Conservatives fumbled their screening, being forced to dump some of their nominees and neglecting to register others as Conservatives. As a result, Elections B.C. reports official Conservative candidates in only 56 of 85 ridings. In 29 others, folks looking to vote Conservative won’t find that name next to any of the candidates on the ballot.

Perhaps they’d vote for one of the other parties on the ballot, or maybe an independent. But as both Greens and Conservatives are to some degree a protest against the status quo, I doubt their stranded supporters would go to the Liberals.

The Liberals, then, have much cause for cheer at this week’s improvement in the polls. But they are still fighting uphill against the odds, for the come-from-behind scenario that would vault them past the New Democrats and into first place by election day.

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